POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN ONLINE LEARNING INTERACTION: EXPLORING POLITENESS IN WHATSAPP TEXT MESSAGING DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The study aims to explore the politeness strategies employed by students to their lecturer via WhattsApp. This study applies qualitative research method by describing the phenomenon of the language. To get the purpose of this study, there are some procedures applied. They are collecting, analyzing, and interpreting the narrative data, conducted at English Department Students at Universitas Methodist Indonesia in Indonesia in 2021. There 40 students in WhatssApp Group Application in Introduction to English Poetry Class. The data are then analyzed based on the politeness strategies’s theory proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987). By transcribing, selecting, and interpreting the WhattsApp Text Messaging of the students when giving comments to the lecture’s instruction, it is found that there are some expressions such as greetings, Address terms, Thanks, and Apologies applied by students in WhatsApp Text Messaging. Those expressions belong to positive and negative politeness strategies. The positive politeness strategies are dominantly applied by students. These strategies are to minimize threat when giving comments for every instruction created by lecturer. It strengthens that students try to minimize the face threat. They treat their lecturer as the superior person who has power in the class. In short, the harmonious relationship is maintaining even in online learning communication.